Saturday, July 30, 2016

"To bolster his argument that this was a bad idea, he told George Stephanopoulos on This Week the following: “Well, I'll tell you what I don't like. It's against two NFL games. I got a letter from the NFL saying, "This is ridiculous. Why are the debates against--" 'cause the NFL doesn't wanna go against the debates.” Except, that is a lie. Red State is reporting that the NFL has publicly come out stating that they never sent Trump a letter. That was quick."

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2016/07/29/3803308/clinton-economy-moodys/
"The analysis stands in stark contrast to what Moody’s found would happen if Republican nominee Donald Trump wins the election. Last month it released an analysis that concluded that his policies would plunge the country back into a recession, cost millions of jobs, fail to improve Americans’ incomes, and increase the deficit by $1 trillion. In response, an adviser to Trump’s campaign released a report saying that the nominee’s plans wouldn’t increase the deficit because he has said they won’t."

"Duke said he is "overjoyed to see Donald Trump and most Americans embrace most of the issues that I've championed for years." And declared that his "slogan remains 'America first'," a slogan that Trump has borrowed."

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/07/28/mike-pence-set-strengthen-ties-alec-and-corporate-driven-education-reform/211995
"ALEC is funded by several philanthropic organizations founded or supported by the oil billionaires David and Charles Koch -- including the Charles Koch Foundation, “dark money ATM" DonorsTrust, and Donors Capital Fund -- as well as several other staunchly right-wing private foundations. It boasts having “nearly 300 corporate and private foundation members,” who pay for memberships in order to influence the proposed model policies, and lists partnerships with several right-wing education privatization groups."

http://addictinginfo.org/2016/07/28/ashley-judd-knows-from-experience-that-donald-trump-is-a-perverted-creep-and-hes-revolting/
"And it’s not like Trump hasn’t publicly displayed his creepiness. On multiple occasions, Trump has fantasized about his own daughter. During a 2006 appearance on “The View,” Trump said this about Ivanka Trump when asked if she would ever pose for Playboy: “It would be really disappointing — not really — but it would depend on what’s inside the magazine. I don’t think Ivanka would do that, although she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.” And that was just in 2006. Here’s what he told Rolling Stone for an article in 2015. At 69, he can still carry on like the teen who was yanked out of prep school and delivered to Col. Dobias, the take-no-shit instructor at the military academy. After I met Ivanka and praised her to her father, he said, “Yeah, she’s really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father . . . ” So yeah, Donald Trump treats all women, even his own daughter, as sexual objects. He’s disgusting. And he’s the person the Republican Party chose as their leader. If that’s how they thought they could reach out to women voters they were sorely mistaken."

"The July 28 Observer article noted that the North Carolina GOP inaccurately tweeted that Kaine was wearing a “Honduras flag pin on his jacket but no American flag.” However, WNYT reporter Ben Amey was quick to point out that Kaine’s pin was a “Blue Star Service pin for his son, who’s a deployed Marine.” The North Carolina GOP account replied, thanking Amey “for letting us correct our mistake,” but failed to apologize to Kaine for the error. Because they are jerks."

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/7/26/1552604/-Connect-the-following-7-dots-Do-you-see-a-pattern-Robert-Reich
"1. Trump's debt load has grown dramatically over the last year, from $350 million to $630 million. At the same time, he’s been blackballed by all major US banks. 2. Post-bankruptcy, Trump has become highly reliant on money from Russia -- most of which has over the years become increasingly concentrated among oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin. 3. Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign manager and top advisor, spent most of the last decade as top campaign and communications advisor to Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian Ukrainian Prime Minister and then President whose ouster in 2014 led to the on-going crisis and proxy war in Ukraine. Yanukovych was and remains a close ally of Putin. 4. Trump's foreign policy advisor on Russia and Europe is Carter Page, a man whose entire professional career has revolved around investments in Russia and who has deep and continuing financial and employment ties to Gazprom, which, in turn, is part of Putin’s financial empire. 5. Over the course of the last year, Putin has aligned all Russian state controlled media behind Trump."

"So, here we have Trump with links to some rather shady Russian investors, with a pro-Putin/pro-Russia campaign manager, and a foreign policy advisor who has deep ties to Russia — to go along with the “bromance” that seems to exist between the GOP presidential nominee and the Russian president. Oh — but there’s even more. During the RNC convention, the Trump campaign made sure that the Republican platform wouldn’t include a push to supply Ukraine to fight against Russian forces. By the way, removing the anti-Putin rhetoric was the only thing the Trump campaign pushed to have removed from the GOP’s platform."

"The heads of fact-checkers throughout the land exploded last week, as speakers at the RNC in Cleveland piled lie upon lie upon piles of lies. The favorite of all these lies is the one about crime running rampant and Americans in general being so very unsafe. It's just not true."

"Former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Wednesday morning used a thank-you speech to Texas delegates to sound the alarm about the Republican foe his party’s nominee now faces: Donald Trump."

"On MSNBC last night, the Senator sat down with Andrea Mitchell and several of the convention floor warriors to talk about Donald Trump. Franken noted that Trump got his political "career" started with birtherism and moved on to fake "investigations in Hawaii" along with lying about Muslims celebrating in New Jersey after 9/11. Then Andrea Mitchell says this: But facts don't seem to matter in this campaign"

"Despite being economically and militarily powerful, the U.S. remains stagnated, when compared to other democracies, in a belief culture—stubbornly clinging to unwarranted beliefs despite an abundance of evidence easily accessible to anyone."

"All that stuff you hear about how teachers unions protect bad teachers through the evils of due process and their general uniony badness? A new study for the National Bureau of Economic Research says nuh-uh. EduShyster interviews the study’s author, Eunice Han"

"The first half of 2016 has blown away temperature records, capped off by a record hot June, once again bumping up the odds that 2016 will be the hottest year on record globally, according to data released Tuesday."

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/7/26/1552519/-Trump-has-put-us-at-DEFCON-1-We-cannot-shrug-at-Never-Again
"Donald Trump is a genuine fascist who has no regard whatsoever for democratic governance. He has taken savage pleasure in fomenting violence at his own rallies, lamenting that “nobody wants to hurt each other anymore.” He has heaped praise on the world’s most ruthless tyrants, like Vladimir Putin, Saddam Hussein, and Kim Jong Un. And he has the full-throated backing of modern-day Nazis whose support he has not only refused to disavow, but instead proactively cultivated. The threat he poses to the future of this republic and the safety of the world is unknowable and may be without limit. These are not conclusions I draw lightly."

http://reverbpress.com/world/putin-is-not-fcking-around-american-democracy-is-under-attack/
"Given all this information, it is now more important than ever that Donald Trump releases his tax returns. It is no longer a matter of showing the public that his business is aboveboard. Trump needs to prove that he is not effectively committing treason by colluding with Russia to undermine American democracy and US foreign policy in exchange for massive debt relief. If he will not release his tax returns, the Republican party has a historic responsibility to the United States to sabotage Donald Trump."

"A party willing to lend its collective capital to Donald Trump has entered a compromise beyond any credible threshold of legitimacy. There is no redemption in being one of the “good Nazis.” I hereby resign my position as a York Township Republican committeeman. My thirty-year tenure as a Republican is over."

Sunday, July 24, 2016

http://www.vox.com/2016/7/21/12253638/republican-convention-trump-speech
"Donald Trump is not a candidate the American people would turn to in normal times. He’s too inexperienced, too eccentric, too volatile, too risky. Voting Trump is burning down the house to collect the insurance money — you don’t do it unless things are really, really bad. Here is Trump’s problem: Things are not really, really bad. In fact, things are doing much better than when President Obama came into office. Unemployment is 4.9 percent nationally — a number Trump knows is far from a crisis, because it’s lower than the unemployment rate Mike Pence is presiding over in Indiana, and Trump keeps bragging about his running mate’s economic record. The deficit has gone down in recent years, and the stock market has gone up. The end of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars mean fewer Americans are dying abroad. A plurality approve of the job Obama is doing. So Trump needs to convince voters that things are bad, even if they’re not. He needs to make Americans afraid again. And tonight, he tried."

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/7/22/1549416/-Mike-Pence-s-0-percent-rating-on-Social-Security-Medicare
"That would be privatizing Social Security, just to be clear. In fact, he thought Bush's plan didn't go far enough or wouldn’t happen fast enough, "calling for an even larger private accounts scheme to be implemented sooner, putting Americans at even greater fiscal risk than the President's doomed plan." This deficit peacock was so serious about privatizing Social Security, he wanted to do it with increased deficit spending. Oh, but that's not all! He was an enthusiastic supporter of the Paul Ryan budget that first proposed making Medicare a voucher program. Raising the retirement age? You betcha. Cutting Medicaid? No problem. "I think everything has to be on the table … I think it's absolutely imperative, whether it's Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid," he said in 2010. "With regard to entitlements we're going to have to take some deep cuts in domestic spending." All of that led the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare to score Pence at 0 percent on issues important to seniors during the 2011-2012 Congress. Just one more bad record to add to the Pence pile—and one more group of voters the Republican ticket is going to alienate."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-putin-yes-it-s-really-a-thing
"Let's start with the basic facts. There is a lot of Russian money flowing into Trump's coffers and he is conspicuously solicitous of Russian foreign policy priorities. I'll list off some facts. 1. All the other discussions of Trump's finances aside, his debt load has grown dramatically over the last year, from $350 million to $630 million. This is in just one year while his liquid assets have also decreased. Trump has been blackballed by all major US banks. 2. Post-bankruptcy Trump has been highly reliant on money from Russia, most of which has over the years become increasingly concentrated among oligarchs and sub-garchs close to Vladimir Putin. Here's a good overview from The Washington Post, with one morsel for illustration ... Since the 1980s, Trump and his family members have made numerous trips to Moscow in search of business opportunities, and they have relied on Russian investors to buy their properties around the world. “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” Trump’s son, Donald Jr., told a real estate conference in 2008, according to an account posted on the website of eTurboNews, a trade publication. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” 3. One example of this is the Trump Soho development in Manhattan, one of Trump's largest recent endeavors. The project was the hit with a series of lawsuits in response to some typically Trumpian efforts to defraud investors by making fraudulent claims about the financial health of the project. Emerging out of that litigation however was news about secret financing for the project from Russia and Kazakhstan. Most attention about the project has focused on the presence of a twice imprisoned Russian immigrant with extensive ties to the Russian criminal underworld. But that's not the most salient part of the story."

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/07/vladimir_putin_has_a_plan_for_destroying_the_west_and_it_looks_a_lot_like.html
"On Wednesday, Donald Trump told the New York Times that he would not necessarily come to the aid of NATO states threatened by Russia and would make his decision to defend them from an attack after reviewing whether they “have fulfilled their obligations to us.” It was the latest statement from Trump that was likely greeted with delight in the Kremlin. Earlier this month, Franklin Foer wrote on the frightening ways in which Trump seems to be playing right into Vladimir Putin's plans for destabilizing the West. Vladimir Putin has a plan for destroying the West—and that plan looks a lot like Donald Trump. Over the past decade, Russia has boosted right-wing populists across Europe. It loaned money to Marine Le Pen in France, well-documented transfusions of cash to keep her presidential campaign alive. Such largesse also wended its way to the former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, who profited “personally and handsomely” from Russian energy deals, as an American ambassador to Rome once put it. (Berlusconi also shared a 240-year-old bottle of Crimean wine with Putin and apparently makes ample use of a bed gifted to him by the Russian president.) There’s a clear pattern: Putin runs stealth efforts on behalf of politicians who rail against the European Union and want to push away from NATO. He’s been a patron of Golden Dawn in Greece, Ataka in Bulgaria, and Jobbik in Hungary. Joe Biden warned about this effort last year in a speech at the Brookings Institution: “President Putin sees such political forces as useful tools to be manipulated, to create cracks in the European body politic which he can then exploit.” Ruptures that will likely multiply after Brexit—a campaign Russia’s many propaganda organs bombastically promoted. The destruction of Europe is a grandiose objective; so is the weakening of the United States. Until recently, Putin has only focused glancing attention on American elections. Then along came the presumptive Republican nominee."

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/04/paul_manafort_isn_t_a_gop_retread_he_s_made_a_career_of_reinventing_tyrants.html
"Although his client list has included chunks of the Fortune 500, he has also built a booming business working with dictators. As Roger Stone has boasted about their now-disbanded firm: “Black, Manafort, Stone, and Kelly, lined up most of the dictators of the world we could find. … Dictators are in the eye of the beholder.” Manafort had a special gift for changing how dictators are beheld by American eyes. He would recast them as noble heroes—venerated by Washington think tanks, deluged with money from Congress. Playing tennis with Yanukovych at Mezhyhirya might have been the culmination of Manafort’s long career. He spent nearly seven years commuting to Kiev. Over that stretch, he remade Ukrainian politics and helped shift the country into Vladimir Putin’s sphere of influence. It was an impressive achievement, at least according to the ethical calculus that governs Manafort’s world. But then along came Donald Trump—another oligarch in desperate need of his services."

https://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/manafort-russia?utm_term=.qcZLz0XVL#.ijkp9dgJp
"Trump’s top adviser, Paul Manafort, has spent much of his recent career working for pro-Russian forces in Ukraine, and doing complex deals for an oligarch with close ties to Putin. And while a Democratic senator has already charged Trump is not responsible enough to receive secret information, Manafort’s deep relationships with top pro-Russian figures raise special concerns. Manafort may be best known for managing the 2010 campaign of Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian politician whose ouster as president prompted a Russian invasion of the country. He has, according to court documents, managed tens of millions of dollars for Oleg Deripaska, an oligarch denied entry to the U.S. reportedly for ties to organized crime, but so close to Vladimir Putin that top Russian officials fought (unsuccessfully) to get him a visa."

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/07/21/3800968/trump-spent-lot-speech-fear-mongering-crime-3-charts-prove-wrong/
"Donald Trump wants you to think that America is a scary, scary place. In his speech accepting the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, Trump claims that “decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this Administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement.” He unleashes a blizzard of cherry-picked statistics all directed at one purpose — convincing you that crime has run amok and that he is the only thing that can save you. Don’t believe him. The reality is that crime isn’t just on a downward trend, but it has been for a very long time."

http://thedailybanter.com/2016/07/no-cable-news-people-trumps-speech-wasnt-politics-as-usual/
"I've been hesitant to trample all over Godwin's Law by emphatically comparing Trump to a dictator, or even Hitler, but as I watched Trump screaming at the world in lieu of an actual acceptance speech, I couldn't help but to recall that, historically, this is how tyrants rise to power. This is exactly how it happens: an eccentric loud-mouth with a knack for pandering to the whimsy of the people, ranting for what seems like hours and using an over-modulated tone about how he alone can implement law and order. I hasten to qualify the following by noting that it's not meant as a compliment. Nevertheless, Trump's speech was a truly masterful convergence of populist outrage and tyrannical ranting unlike anything we've ever seen in a major party convention speech. That's because even despots like George W. Bush or Richard Nixon stopped short of tossing aside decorum and going full Third-World-Strongman as Trump did Thursday night in Cleveland. Yes, of course Trump lied a lot, despite his early declaration that his speech wouldn't contain any lies -- "believe me!" The lies weren't the most horrifying aspects of the speech. Trump, with way too much ease, expertly dovetailed a laundry list of horror stories with lofty promises about how he plans to fix literally everything, and he did it all by shouting and gesticulating wildly as if he just stepped out of a How To Become A Dictator In Three Easy Moves seminar. It was a textbook performance that included loudness patented by Hitler, who used electronic amplification and feedback to stir his throngs of sycophants into googly-eyed, white-faced frenzies. One of my conservative friends, Tom Nichols, a professor at the Naval War College, five-time Jeopardy! champion and proud Trump critic, tweeted perhaps the most salient reaction to Trump's address: "To use the precise political science terminology, that will go down as one of the most deeply f*cked up speeches in US history"."

"Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke on Friday announced he will run for U.S. Senate, linking his decision to Donald Trump’s bid for the presidency. Saying he was “overjoyed” at Trump’s successful campaign to be the Republican party’s presidential nominee, Duke said he will advocate for the “rights and heritage of European Americans” in Congress."

http://thedailybanter.com/2016/07/gop-rebirth-as-a-fascist-party/
"Donald Trump's acceptance speech at the GOP convention last night was a predictable mixture of outright lies and rampant fear mongering designed to appeal to the worst of America's instincts. Much of the speech was nothing out of the ordinary given the general tone of Republican rhetoric in recent years -- but there were a couple of stark differences that had much of the blogosphere up in arms -- and rightly so. It wasn't Trump's lies, his bombast or his nastiness -- it was dictatorial strongman act that he alone can fix America's problems, and the bleak fact that his presence in American politics is no longer a joke. What was once unthinkable is now real, and Trump is officially the Republican nominee for president. This was not the end of the Republican Party as many have claimed -- it was its transformation into something completely different. As Trump delivered his lie-filled, nonsensical stream of paeans to himself read badly off of a teleprompter, the blogosphere reacted in real time, debunking much of the garbage he promised his audience was the unvarnished truth. “Here at our convention, there will be no lies,” said Trump. Of course this was utter, utter bullsh*t. After it was done, sane commenters reacted in horror to the spectacle that had more in common with a Nuremberg Rally than a political convention in a modern democracy."

"Trump has been masterful at exploiting this visceral racism and intolerance into a festering, hateful following. Last night, he told them that he is the only person who can protect them from the fears that he has so mercilessly exploited. He is their strongman, their unilateral leader, their authoritarian great white hope."

"Three decades after becoming a Republican Party activist, a member of the York Township Republican Committeemen’s Organization resigned from the party citing the rise of Donald Trump as GOP’s choice for president in the November election."

http://addictinginfo.org/2016/07/21/this-one-image-from-the-rnc-is-all-you-need-to-see/
"Trump regularly retweets white supremacists, including their propaganda about African-Americans, throws out antisemitic imagery, and attracts the KKK and other white supremacist groups in droves. Unfortunately, the Republican Party proved themselves to be utterly without principles when they officially adopted many of Trump’s ridiculous ideas into their official platform, and even continued his tradition of courting white supremacists by blowing up a tweet from one on a giant f*cking marquee. Nothing can sum up what the Republican Party has become under Trump better than a scene from right-wing propagandist Laura Ingraham’s speech at the RNC Wednesday. The content of Ingraham’s mindless babbling that vaguely passes for a speech is unimportant — it’s how she ended it that is. In the background was an image of Donald Trump with his arm and palm outstretched — one that matches a familiar gesture commonly associated with a man whose name rhymes with “Schmadoff Schmittler.” Ingraham turned to that photo and returned the gesture, then waved to the crowd."

"Roger Ailes has been the most toxic influence on our politics over the 20 years he has run Fox News and Fox Business. The damage is inestimable, the poison now in the bloodstream of our body politic. It will take decades to undo his destruction, if it even can be undone."

http://www.politicususa.com/2016/07/21/trump-faces-complaint-broke-federal-day-accepts-gop-nomination.html
"The Trump campaign has already announced that they plan to allow corporations to take over the federal government if Trump wins the election. According to Chris Christie, Trump is already making a list of civil servants to fire who he will replace with corporate employees, that will be allowed to keep their corporate jobs, and also work for the government. Donald Trump sees no line between the public and private sectors. His presidential campaign and his business interests have been mashed together in a way that should deeply concern the American people. Trump doesn’t believe in the public good."

http://addictinginfo.org/2016/07/21/this-one-image-from-the-rnc-is-all-you-need-to-see/
"Trump regularly retweets white supremacists, including their propaganda about African-Americans, throws out antisemitic imagery, and attracts the KKK and other white supremacist groups in droves. Unfortunately, the Republican Party proved themselves to be utterly without principles when they officially adopted many of Trump’s ridiculous ideas into their official platform, and even continued his tradition of courting white supremacists by blowing up a tweet from one on a giant f*cking marquee. Nothing can sum up what the Republican Party has become under Trump better than a scene from right-wing propagandist Laura Ingraham’s speech at the RNC Wednesday. The content of Ingraham’s mindless babbling that vaguely passes for a speech is unimportant — it’s how she ended it that is. In the background was an image of Donald Trump with his arm and palm outstretched — one that matches a familiar gesture commonly associated with a man whose name rhymes with “Schmadoff Schmittler.” Ingraham turned to that photo and returned the gesture, then waved to the crowd."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/george-w-bush-worried-last-gop-president
"Former President George W. Bush confided to his closest ex-aides that he fears Donald Trump's nomination could hasten the downfall of the Republican Party, according to a Politico story out Tuesday. "I'm worried that I will be the last Republican President," Bush told former aides and advisers at an April reunion in Dallas."

"Trump revels in falsehood. He may or may not know, if “knowledge” is the sort of thing he has, but his indifference to the truth or falsity of what comes out of his mouth is notorious, career-long and pathological. Indeed, it might be the most consistent thing about him."

http://thedailybanter.com/2016/07/we-are-officially-in-pre-nazi-germany/
"Put aside the fact that Clinton was exonerated from any wrongdoing in Benghazi by a Republican led investigation, and at least 13 other Benghazi type attacks occurred on George W. Bush's watch without any outrage from the Right -- this statement from an official adviser to the Trump campaign has put this election into a league of its own. The Republican National Convention is already a freak show run by incompetent halfwits who can't be bothered to give Trump's own wife an original speech, invite failed reality tv stars onto primetime slots and have former underwear models declaring president Obama is a secret Muslim. But the presence of Baldasaro -- a violent minded simpleton who would no doubt be handing over Jews to the Nazi authorities in 1940's Germany -- makes the convention a horrifyingly sinister affair. An official adviser advocating the murder of Hillary Clinton should be taken very, very seriously by not only Americans, but law enforcement and the FBI. Baldasaro's comments will certainly incite more vitriol against the former Secretary of State (already on display at the RNC), and quite possibly an act of violence. If the past few months have taught us anything, it is that the average Donald Trump supporters is incredibly stupid and also incredibly prone to aggressive behavior. With the likes of Baldasaro validating their anger and aggression with a call to shoot Hillary Clinton, it is truly open season in America."

"he doesn’t really want to be president, he just wants the title. He wants to be called “President Trump,” while enjoying all the attention and fanfare that comes along with being president, but he doesn’t actually want to do the job — he wants his VP to handle most of that. He doesn’t want the 24/7, 365 days a year responsibilities that are required of anyone who holds that office. He just wants to be the “face” of the White House and the nation, letting everyone else do all the work, while he takes the credit for it — and probably none of the blame. This makes perfect sense considering the type of person Trump is. He’s 70-years-old, rich, arrogant and has had people doing most of the work for him nearly his entire life. All he’s really ever been is a face of the “Trump brand.” The truth is, Donald Trump is nothing more than a sleazy salesman who’s spent his entire campaign pandering to millions of fools who are ignorant enough to buy the con he’s trying to sell."

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

"1. Tax Cuts for the Rich: Wherever tax rates penalize thrift or discourage investment, they must be lowered. Wherever current provisions of the code are disincentives for economic growth, they must be changed… We propose to level the international playing field by lowering the corporate tax rate to be on a par with, or below, the rates of other industrial nations. 2. Deregulate The Banks: The Republican vision for American banking calls for establishing transparent, efficient markets where consumers can obtain loans they need at reasonable rates based on market conditions. Unfortunately, in response to the financial institutions crisis of 2008-2009, the Democratic-controlled Congress enacted the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, otherwise known as Dodd-Frank. 3. Stop Consumer Protection: The worst of Dodd-Frank is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, deliberately designed to be a rogue agency. It answers to neither Congress nor the executive, has its own guaranteed funding outside the appropriations process… If the Bureau is not abolished, it should be subjected to congressional appropriation. 4. Start Repealing Environmental Laws: We call for a comprehensive review of federal regulations, especially those dealing with the environment, that make it harder and more costly for Americans to rent, buy, or sell homes. 5. Start shrinking unions and union labor: We renew our call for repeal of the Davis-Bacon law, which limits employment and drives up construction and maintenance costs for the benefit of unions… Although unionization has never been permitted in any government agency concerned with national security, the current Administration has reversed that policy for the Transportation Security Administration. We will correct that mistake… We support the right of states to enact Right-to-Work laws and call for a national law to protect the economic liberty of the modern workforce."

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/07/19/3799596/single-radical-line-republican-party-platform/
"The Constitution, by its own terms, is the “supreme law of the land.” All judges are bound by the words of the Constitution, and all laws made by legislatures within the United States must yield to the Constitution’s provisions. This is the central insight of the American republic — the idea that the structure and limits of government are laid out in a written document, and that document is binding on all government actors subject to its terms. The Republican Party’s 2016 Platform rejects this concept outright."

"Pence has been handsomely compensated by tobacco companies for his advocacy against anti-smoking public health campaigns, even though they have proven wildly successful in driving down smoking rates. Mike Pence is a man who rejects proven public health interventions for one dangerous substance while insisting on failed punitive, prohibitionist policies for another, less dangerous, substance. That's so last century."

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/donald-trumps-ghostwriter-tells-all
"he felt that he had to speak up before it was too late. As for Trump’s anger toward him, he said, “I don’t take it personally, because the truth is he didn’t mean it personally. People are dispensable and disposable in Trump’s world.” If Trump is elected President, he warned, “the millions of people who voted for him and believe that he represents their interests will learn what anyone who deals closely with him already knows—that he couldn’t care less about them"."

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/07/18/3799426/mike-pence-criminalize-adultery/
"Before his career as an elected official, Gov. Mike Pence (R-IN) hosted both a radio and television show in the 1990s, with the name, “The Mike Pence Show.” While his commentaries from that time in defense of cigarettes and in opposition to the feminist message in Disney’s Mulan have made news, one less noticed piece suggested that adultery should be a crime in the United States. It appeared on the website for his television show on WNDY, retrieved through the Internet Archive WayBack Machine."

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/07/19/3799867/rnc-war-on-women-hillary-clinton/
"For many decades, Trump has attacked other women who disagree with him, be they conservative or liberal. Last summer, for example, he attacked Fox News host Megyn Kelly for asking him a question about his history of sexist statements, implying she was menstruating at the time. Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort attempted this week to deflect criticism of Melania Trump’s apparent plagiarism by blaming Hillary Clinton, though Clinton had yet to comment publicly on the episode."

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/7/19/1549630/-Trump-Campaign-says-Melania-Trump-is-not-a-plagiarist-which-means-she-is
"Here's the thing: Melania Trump said publicly she wrote her own speech with little help. Campaign watchers have said, in contrast, that she did not write it and that a staff speechwriter must have plagiarized the First Lady and should be immediately fired. Manafort's statement, however, makes it clear that she did write the speech. That is why the campaign is not taking any responsibility for it because this is her fault. Which leads me to one final conclusion: Melania Trump is a dumb ass. Pundits are right that someone needs to be fired. Problem is, it is the candidate's spouse. Then again, Trump has had no problem firing his previous wives."

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/7/19/1549704/-Melania-Trump-is-a-liar-like-her-husband-objectively
"Melania Trump is a plagiarizer, which Republicans suddenly don’t think is a terrible thing anymore. But aside from pretending to have lived Michele Obama’s childhood, there were other clues proving that yes, Melania shares the same … let’s call them “values” … as her husband. First there was the pretense that she had written the speech herself. Asked if she was nervous about delivering it, she said: I read it once over, and that's all because I wrote it with as little help as possible. Now anyone that has ever delivered a major speech knows that writing it yourself doesn’t negate having to review it again, and again, and again. Look at the speeches on the podium of many orators and you’ll see printed paper scribbled with edits and cross outs. So right off the bat we knew she was full of sh*t, because the entire Trump clan is full of sh*t, but little did we know that Trump’s very own campaign would call her a liar less than 24 hours later: [[Manafort] told ABC News’ “Good Morning America”:] "In writing her beautiful speech, Melania's team of writers took notes on her life’s inspirations, and in some instances included fragments that reflected her own thinking.” So from “I wrote it” to “Melania’s team of writers"."

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/07/19/3799709/trump-cleveland-rnc-facts/
"Last night on the O’Reilly Factor, Trump suggested he played a role in choosing the location for the 2016 Republican National Convention. “I wanted it to be here. And, we had lots of choices,” he said. “I wanted it to be in Ohio. I recommended Ohio.” In reality, the Republican National Committee’s site selection committee chose Cleveland for the convention back in 2014, without any input from Trump. At that time, the businessman was busy ruminating over whether or not he should own the Buffalo Bills. Trump had absolutely no reason to lie about his role in the selection of Cleveland as the site of the Republican convention. There was no reason for him to be involved and the fact that he was not involved is completely inconsequential. But Trump chose to lie about it anyway and that’s important in understanding Trump’s relationship with the truth."

http://thedailybanter.com/2016/07/trump-blames-hillary-melanias-plagiarized-speech/
"Yes. This was actually a big Hillary Clinton smear campaign orchestrated to take down Melania because the former Secretary of State, former New York Senator and former First Lady finds the Slovenian ex-lingerie model "threatening". This type of flagrant nonsense could only come from Donald Trump's campaign team -- an unsophisticated mob of bullsh*tters who seem incapable of controlling any aspect of their client's behavior, or limiting the enormous damage they do themselves. Instead of following the well trodden path of crisis management and firing whoever was responsible for the unbelievably amateurish gaffe, Manafort did the exact opposite and lied about it. And not only did he lie about what anyone with functioning ears knows to be bullsh*t, he astonishingly blamed someone else for it -- a move so transparently dumb one wonders how he manages to feed himself let alone run a professional presidential campaign."

http://www.vox.com/2016/7/19/12225272/melania-trump-plagiarism-matters
"Because at the end of the day, Trump is lazy. He was too lazy to diligently rebuild his credit and his real estate empire, too lazy to get into the food business in a way that would enhance his brand rather than run it down, too lazy to develop menswear that meets his own standards, too lazy to develop a real curriculum for Trump University, and too lazy to run a real presidential campaign."

"On Saturday, white nationalist leader and Donald Trump booster David Duke promoted his potential run for Congress on “The Political Cesspool,” the “pro-White” radio program that once hosted Donald Trump Jr. Duke said that if he decides to run for Congress in Louisiana, it will be to warn people that “European-Americans” are “headed toward an ethnic cleansing, and that’s the only way to put it, in the nation that our forefathers created” and to combat policies that are “destroying our people.” He repeated his belief that Trump, who has notoriously shared the Twitter messages of white supremacists, include one with the handle @WhiteGenocideTM, has given white nationalists an opportunity to go “on the offensive"."

"Americans who were surprised by the anti-Semitic vitriol that was directed at former Hawaii governor Linda Lingle during her speech before the Republican National Convention on Monday shouldn’t have been: American anti-Semitism has a long history. Monday’s explosion of Jew-baiting and racist trolling that took place on the Republicans’ official YouTube page shocked the RNC into closing down the comments section, but it is unlikely to have had an impact on diminishing the anti-Semitism that its presumptive nominee has been actively courting."

"Donald Trump is a very dangerous presidential candidate for a number of reasons. Most importantly, he is a proto-fascist. Trump is also extremely unqualified in terms of the emotional temperament, intellectual curiosity, and policy knowledge necessary to be an effective president of the United States. But Trump’s real power (and thus, danger to American politics) comes from how the so-called smart people in the commentariat have tried to make sense of a campaign that is, on a fundamental level, just a celebration of buffoonery, stupidity, and bigotry. Unfortunately, there is no singular voice such as that of Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow with the courage to publicly and plainly state that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is an exercise in bovine scatology. Donald Trump is one step away from being President of the United States of America because of this fact. The American corporate news media has elevated Donald Trump to the level of being a serious presidential candidate when they should have instead thrown him into the political dustbin many months ago."

"If he wins the presidency, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump would seek to purge the federal government of officials appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama and could ask Congress to pass legislation making it easier to fire public workers, Trump ally, Chris Christie, said on Tuesday."

"Donald Trump doesn’t read. While the GOP nominee for president admitted he gets most of his news from “the shows,” meaning the Sunday morning talk shows, Trump doesn’t read about the news or the world the way other presidents or candidates for president have."

"Low expectations help more than high expectations do. By stringing two sentences together in a debate when there was some doubt as to whether he had mastered the English language, the media anointed George W. Bush the second coming of William Jennings Bryan. Just remember that when Trump’s preposterous pronouncements and behavior are reported as just “Trump being Trump,” or as the media begin to adore him for not seeming to be as racist as he had purported to be. That is what we may be encountering in Election 2016: a media gift of low expectations to The Donald."

"Tony Schwartz, the writer who ghost-wrote Trump's Art of the Deal. It is a chilling, devastating and revealing interview. Here's a taste, but just read the whole thing. “I put lipstick on a pig,” he said. “I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is.” He went on, “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.” If he were writing “The Art of the Deal” today, Schwartz said, it would be a very different book with a very different title. Asked what he would call it, he answered, “The Sociopath"."

"Pence has also taken a stand against raising the minimum wage to livable levels, opposing a bill that would have raised Indiana’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.25. Instead,Pence signed into law a bill prohibiting local governments from forcing businesses to raise minimum wages unless mandated by the state or federal government. Pence also signed a law repealing Indiana’s common construction wage, leaving wages on publicly-funded construction projects at the mercy of free-market pay scales rather than in the hands of local boards composed of taxpayers or contractors."

“Do you think John McCain is not a hero because he was captured?” Stahl asked the governor, referring back to Trump’s disparaging comments about the former Vietnam prisoner of war last July. “I have a great deal of respect for John McCain,” Pence said before Stahl cut in and motioned toward Trump while asking, “Do you think he went too far?” Pence is then seen leaning toward Trump, who waves his hand and tells him, “You could say yes. That’s OK. On that one you could say yes. It’s fine"."

"Donald Trump announced his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination by saying the United States needed a leader who had written “The Art of the Deal” — but his ghostwriter said he’s uniquely and disastrously unqualified for the job. Tony Schwartz, who earned a joint byline and half the bestselling 1987 memoir’s advance and royalties, spent 18 months with the real estate developer and future reality TV star, and he got to know Trump better than almost anyone outside his family."

"he’s been horrified watching at how Trump has turned increasingly authoritarian during his presidential campaign. Specifically, he cites Trump’s encouragement of violence at his rallies as particularly troubling."

"5. Almost nothing he says is true: Trump and his supporters can spin it however they like, but he is, by far, the most dishonest presidential candidate I’ve ever seen. It’s not just that he lies (all politicians lie) it’s that he simply makes things up. His go-to “source” is “what I’m hearing,” though he never provides anyone with any credible source to back up all of this idiocy that he claims to hear. But because he’s telling people what they want to hear, they never question him. It’s why he’s the first one to accuse others of being liars. He figures if he’s out there calling everyone else the liar, playing himself up as the “victim” of people who are out to get him, it makes his supporters actually believe that there’s this big “anti-Trump” conspiracy. Even though the truth is just that he lies so damn much; the only option most people have is to constantly call him out for his endless stream of bullsh*t."

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/07/16/3799095/mike-pence-and-mlk/
"The fact that Pence is referencing King as an inspiration may seem ludicrous when you look at Pence’s record. King stood with President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 1965 Voting Rights Act was signed into law. Yet, when it comes to voting rights, an issue that King fought hard for, you see that Indiana doesn’t make it easy for voters to get to the polls. The state only kept polling places open until 6 p.m. during the May primary, although most states keep their polls open to 8 p.m. or even later. Indiana doesn’t have any laws that require employers to allow workers to leave work to go vote. In contrast, King said in his 1957 speech called “Give Us The Ballot,” “So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind. It is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact. I can only submit to the edict of others.” King was also an important leader for labor rights. The day before he was assassinated, he gave a speech to support sanitation workers who were on strike in Memphis. Those sanitation workers were trying to get union recognition. King spoke often about growing economic inequality and said social reforms should not be attacked as being “communist,” according to a collection of speeches that were recently discovered by historians. Pence, however, hasn’t been a friend to workers during his time as governor of Indiana. Although Indiana did not become a right-to-work state under his leadership, he fought to keep the law in place when two judges ruled that it violated the state’s constitution. Pence has also opposed raising the minimum wage and signed a law repealing the state’s common construction wage, which would allow workers for publicly-funded projects to earn a higher wage. Pence also supported cutting food stamps for tens of thousands of people"